


A Messy Situation

by battle_cat



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Aftercare, Aftermath of Rough Sex, Angst, Bathing/Washing, Dubious Consent, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mutual Pining, Orgies, Sex Work, because Hell is terrible, not because of anything that happens between our main characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-29
Updated: 2020-05-29
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:33:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24432151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/battle_cat/pseuds/battle_cat
Summary: tfw you happen to end up at an orgy, it turns out to be your hereditary enemy's work gig, and he's clearly gotten way too drunk
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 24
Kudos: 204





	A Messy Situation

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [A Messy Situation](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24471232) by [Gewi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gewi/pseuds/Gewi)



> So this bears quite a lot of resemblance to, and may have been inspired by, a [fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24357208) by the fantastic and prolific entanglednow. Sometimes a certain angsty premise just won't let you go. Enjoy two sad cakes?

Look, the details of how Aziraphale wound up at the orgy in the wee hours of the morning are not important. It’s Rome. These things happen.

The festivities have mostly died down by the time he arrives. A few sweaty forms are still humping away determinedly in the shadows, but the braziers have burnt down and most of the revelers are sleeping, slumped over a partner or three. But what’s caught his attention, among the prodigious number of naked bodies lying in uncomfortable-looking positions, is a splash of bright copper-red curls glinting in the lamplight. Before he has time to overthink it, he’s picking his way carefully through the sleeping guests, stepping gingerly over sprawled limbs and spilled wine cups.

It’s Crowley, all right. He’s dead asleep, or possibly passed out drunk, judging from the reek of wine in the air. His head is tipped back on a pillow, mouth slightly open and the improbably delicate line of his throat exposed. He’s stark naked, long legs draped over the hairy thighs of the nearest sleeping partygoer, and…well. Aziraphale supposes there is no polite way to notice that he is absolutely covered in human ejaculate. It’s in his hair, crusted at the corners of his mouth and down his chin, splattered in drying ribbons across his chest and stomach, congealing into a tacky mess between his thighs, in his pubic hair, around his spent sex. Here and there his pale skin is scored red with the scratches of hungry fingernails, purplish bruises forming where the flesh had been sucked and bitten.

Is this what humans enjoy getting up to these days? It all seems rather undignified.

The sudden hot flare of protectiveness he feels prickling under his skin must be for the humans around them, sleeping blissfully unaware of the demon in their midst. It must be. There can be no other explanation.

Crowley is surely used to this, he thinks. Demon and all. For all Aziraphale knows he’s been passing out at orgies three nights a week and calling it business as usual.

Still. Probably best not to leave him just lying out here in the open, where anything could—anyone could—

He scoops up Crowley’s lanky form from the floor. He’s all sharp corners and too-long limbs, head flopping awkwardly until Aziraphale figures out how to hold him. He utters a single, grunting snore as Aziraphale lifts him, but doesn’t wake.

There’s a balled-up lump of sticky fabric by his feet that he realizes is Crowley’s toga. He grabs that too, slinging the disconcertingly wet mess over his shoulder before he carries Crowley out of the hall. 

After a few tries and some hasty apologies, he finds an empty, private room down the hall. The fact that no one seems remotely bothered by his absconding with an unconscious, naked guest makes him even more sure he’s doing the right thing.

The room is small and dim, most of the space taken up by a wide lectus liberally supplied with pillows and cushions. He sets Crowley down carefully and lights the single oil lamp with a snap of his fingers. The demon still doesn’t wake.

He knows Crowley is quite fond of wine. They both are, and seemingly doubly so when together, as they have been a handful of times since realizing they were both stationed here. Together they can put away enough to send them into giggling fits over the development of the Pythagorean theorem, as had happened on that one memorable occasion last summer. But he’s never seen Crowley drink to unconsciousness before (how much alcohol must that even take?) and it seems like an ill omen.

In the intimate flicker of lamplight, the demon looks disarmingly soft. Thin lips parted, sleep-mussed curls sticking to the sharp ridge of his cheekbone. His hair is a bit longer than the last time they’d crossed paths, reaching almost to his shoulders in silky waves. Asleep and nude, his corporation seems far too human, and frail, a tangle of knobby joints and concave planes, as if there’s barely enough of him to wrap around the essence inside.

There’s a bruise by the shell of his hipbone. The unmistakable imprint of grasping, greedy fingers.

Without conscious thought, there’s a damp cloth in Aziraphale’s hand and a bowl of warm water at his feet. He sits on the very edge of the couch, giving Crowley as much space as he can manage.

He starts with Crowley’s face, gently wiping his mouth and chin, where spunk had dribbled down the knife-blade of his jaw. He works the crunchy bits out of his hair and smoothes it back from his face. Presses the warm cloth over the purple-red marks on his shoulder where someone had clearly bit him, repeatedly and hard.

His chest and stomach require a bit more vigor; the fluids there are matted into his body hair, and when Aziraphale nudges him gently onto his stomach he can see that his lower back and buttocks are crusted with drying white smears as well. There are odd raw patches on his elbows and shoulderblades that Aziraphale finally puzzles out must be from rubbing against a rough carpet too long.

This is probably what passes for entertainment among demons, he tells himself. There’s no need for the weird tightness in his chest at the observation that Crowley looks rather more _used_ than entertained at the moment, or the thoughts about how much of Crowley’s body he’s been able to touch without so much as a snore of protest out of him, and how easy it would have been for someone with less innocent intentions to do the same.

He should clean up the tacky mess between Crowley’s thighs, but that suddenly feels unbearably intimate.

It’s just washing, he tells himself. Just as he would do for the ill or the infirm. His duty is to love and to care for and to protect God’s creatures, and Crowley is still one of those, after all.

He wets the cloth in the bowl and squeezes it out. Crowley is still lying mostly on his stomach, his comically pale bum drying in the night air. Aziraphale nudges his thighs apart and wipes between them as gently as he can, trying not to touch his actual genitals, which seems a bit beyond propriety for cleaning up your unconscious…well, whatever it is Crowley is to him.

Crowley makes a sudden _hrrmphh_ into the pillows. Aziraphale jerks his hand away.

Crowley’s body contracts, twisting into a protective hunch in a movement that seems more snake than human. He flops his way onto his side and opens one bleary gold eye at Aziraphale.

“…‘Ziraphale?” he mumbles. “Whadderyou doing here?”

“Nothing,” Aziraphale says quickly.

Crowley raises an eyebrow. “‘M on asssignment,” he says, too drunk to keep the hiss from slipping through. “What’sss your excuse?”

“Ahh…same,” he decides. “Steering the righteous away from the path of debauchery, you know…”

Crowley grins. Without the circles of dark glass he’s taken to wearing over his eyes, his face is so open and expressive. “You’re in bed with the path of debauchery,” he slurs. He uncurls himself, his body stretching out long and exposed.

“I’m not _in bed_ with you. I’m on a bed. With you.”

“Ssssemantics.” He wriggles a little closer to Aziraphale.

“I was taking care of you. If you must know.”

He catches the momentary flicker of confusion on Crowley’s face, before he doubles down on the lascivious grin. “Oh, you can take care of me, all right. You can take care of me for the ressst of the night.” He props himself up on one elbow and regards Aziraphale through half-lidded eyes. The sultry act is undercut by the fact that he’s swaying visibly.

Aziraphale sighs. “You’re so drunk you can barely sit up.”

Crowley twitches a shoulder. “Hasssn’t stopped anybody else.” His hand creeps across the space between them. He trails a single finger along the swell of Aziraphale’s thigh where he’s sitting on the couch. 

“C’mon, angel,” he purrs. “Been told to make myself available to, ah, all comers.”

His finger is tracing Aziraphale’s knee through his toga, a lazy circle, around and around. Aziraphale suddenly realizes he’s squeezing the cleaning rag so hard a pool of water is collecting on the floor. He removes Crowley’s hand from his knee.

Crowley grumbles, his ability to sit up on his elbow apparently exhausted. He flops down on his stomach, face still turned toward Aziraphale.

“I mean it, you know,” he says after a long moment of silence. The seductive act is gone, replaced with simple, honest vulnerability. Does he know how much more arresting that is? “You can do anything you want to me.”

 _Yes,_ Aziraphale thinks. _And that’s precisely the problem, isn’t it?_

“You’re going to sleep,” he says. “And I’m going to sit here and make sure no one— That you don’t get anyone else in trouble.”

Crowley makes a disgruntled noise. But his eyes are already drifting closed again, and after a few moments his breathing evens out.

He waits until he’s sure Crowley is asleep, then he retrieves the soiled black toga from where he’d tossed it on the floor. It’s soaked with spilled wine, and quite a few bodily stains of its own. He’s a bit hesitant when it comes to using miracles on Crowley’s corporation. (Will they even work? Will it hurt him? Will Heaven know?) But Heaven has no way of knowing one piece of Earthly cloth from another. He miracles it clean and dry, and then drapes it over the demon’s naked form. After a moment’s hesitation, he tucks an errant curl behind Crowley’s ear.

Crowley wakes up with a long string of mumbled curse words, half of them in languages that humans no longer speak. He pushes himself up on his elbows and squints for a long moment before he seems to register that Aziraphale is still sitting next to him on the bed.

“‘Ziraphale?” He squeezes his eyes shut, looking for a moment very much like a human with an atrocious hangover. “The Heaven are you doing here?”

 _I took care of you, and you couldn’t believe I wasn’t trying to get something in return,_ Aziraphale thinks.

“Not important,” he says.

Grumbling and swearing, Crowley levers his body up by degrees into some semblance of a sitting position. The toga slides off his chest, pooling in his lap. In the late morning light, every bruise and scratch stands out that much more starkly. He swings his legs over the edge of the couch and then freezes with a sharp wince, eyes jammed shut again.

“Are you all right?” Aziraphale ventures. 

“‘M fine,” Crowley hisses, holding up a hand at the exact moment Aziraphale identifies the desire to reach out. He keeps his hands balled up in his lap. There’s a little ripple of demonic energy while Crowley heals whatever he needs to heal to sit without pain. He leaves the marks on his torso untouched.

He starts wrapping his toga haphazardly, and without those dark glasses it’s easy to catch how his gaze wavers over the bite marks and imprints of fingernails, as if noticing them for the first time. And oh, the urge to reach out is back, the desire to smooth a soft, healing miracle over every sign of rough treatment.

Instead, Aziraphale picks up the platter he’s been snacking from while he waited for Crowley to wake. “Would you like a grape, or some fresh bread perhaps?” he offers. “There’s quite a scrumptious spread out in the main room.”

Crowley huffs out a laugh. “You _would_ come to an orgy for the food,” he mutters—then his hands freeze and his gaze shoots over to Aziraphale. “Wait,” he says slowly. “Did we…?”

He looks like he is honestly racking his brain trying to remember, and it hurts a little, that he would think Aziraphale would ever…when he was in such a compromised state…

“Do you think I would do that?” he asks quietly.

Something in Crowley’s expression snaps closed, the line of his jaw suddenly guarded and hard. “No,” he bites off. “Of course not. You’re an _angel._ ” He reaches into nothing, pulls out a pair of those smoked-glass eye coverings and shoves them onto his nose.

Oh bother. He’s done something wrong and now Crowley is cross with him; that much is obvious. He just wishes he understood what it was. He’d only been trying to be considerate.

It doesn’t matter, he tells himself firmly. His intent had been to provide care and he had done so. What exactly had he expected? For Crowley to _thank_ him?

Crowley probably hadn’t even meant the things he’d said last night, had he? He’d probably been in seduction mode all night. He would have given that line to anyone.

Crowley is standing, sandals on his feet that Aziraphale is sure had not been in the room before. “Are you sure you won’t stay for a nibble?” he tries again, feebly.

“Nah. Memos to write up. Lots of successful temptations to report back on. Demon stuff, you know.” He tugs a length of black cloth up over his bony shoulder, a nervous, twitchy motion, and Aziraphale suddenly, vividly remembers the feeling of those fingers stroking over his knee last night.

“Later, angel,” Crowley says. He turns on his heel and exits without looking back, leaving Aziraphale with a platter of bread and fruit that seems much less appetizing than it had a few minutes ago.


End file.
